Would it seem absurd to read that most restaurants in America get a significant amount of essentially free labor out of servers and bartenders for work that has nothing to do with serving or bartending? If so, it's also such a basic, universal fact of the industry that almost no one even comments on it at this point.

[UPDATE: This post contained numerous inaccuracies at time of posting: Thai Union apparently had issues with a single one of their own suppliers, whose fish was only used in pet food. Darden was not aware of the allegations at the time of sourcing from Thai Union, and since they only source farm-harvested shrimp from them, they had not knowingly sourced slave-labor harvested product. We regret the error. A further statement from Darden Restaurants can be found below.]

Welcome back to Behind Closed Ovens, where we take a look at the best and strangest stories from inside the food industry. This week, we've got stories of some of the worst restaurant bosses I've ever heard of. As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.

Some people role play to escape the dreariness of their day-to-day lives. Some people role play to bring back childhood memories. Some people role play to explore fantastical worlds of their own creation. I role play because I want to know the answer to the question "What if powerful and intimidating Bar Rescue host Jon Taffer interrupted anime demons having cybersex on Twitter?"

We've heard about a lot of terrible restaurant owners on this website, but they pale in comparison to the restaurant owner in Valencia, California who was arrested on suspicion of human trafficking, assault with a deadly weapon, and holding a person in involuntary servitude.

The recently announced merger of Heinz and Kraft has prompted some to declare ketchup "a comfort food for people who never aged past wearing disposable pants, using fat pencils and shoving their dirty fists in their mouths." Jeb Lund, normally a quick-witted sage, has turned full-blown troll extraordinaire in this circumstance, writing for The Guardian that "this merger will destroy the last vestiges of taste in America."

I get it. Your favorite restaurant is Big Chuck's Grilled Meat Wagon, parked between The Noodle Truck and The Taco Truck down at the daily lunchtime curbside bazaar of food trucks. Fine. I, too, love Big Chuck's selection of grilled meats. He's got some quality meats down there on the wagon, no one is denying that.

The owners of a Chinese restaurant just south of San Francisco used surveillance camera footage to prove that someone who wrote a bad review on Yelp was making the whole thing up and both sides are accusing the other of cyberbullying.

Welcome back to Behind Closed Ovens, where we take a look at the best and strangest stories from inside the food industry. This week, we've got yet more stories of hilariously dumb customers, as well as an end to the armistice from the Great Egg War of 2014 (NEVER FORGET). As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.

Welcome back to Behind Closed Ovens, where we take a look at the best and strangest stories from inside the food industry. This week, we've got a bevy of stories about servers getting their sweet revenge on deserving customers. As always, these are real e-mails from real readers.

If you witness a restaurant owner committing sexual harassment, you're allowed to post about it on TripAdvisor — as long as you don't use any pesky words like "feminism," "misogyny," or "International Women's Day."

Listen. I say the following with a pristine record of support for unhealthful dairy-based coating glops—both as a genre of foodstuffs and in most specific instances—as well as with the firm backing of all available science: Ranch dressing is bad. Bad dressing.

You might think that with all the mockery of St. Louis that goes on, we Gawker Media writers are being unfair to the city that is just so gosh-darn humble that it can't stop telling you how humble it is. You might think wrong.